Final Report - A landscape approach to vegetation management
| What is a landscape approach?
The NRC considers that a landscape approach to natural resource management:
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- recognises underlying biophysical processes and their importance in supporting the environmental, economic and social values that society identifies for that landscape into the future
- understands vegetation as a key tool for ensuring all biophysical processes continue to function well and satisfy the improve and maintain environmental outcomes test
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- recognises relevant spatial scale for each process and resource under consideration
- requires spatial maps and other tools to: express NRM priorities; demonstrate landscape processes and functions; help visualise future landscapes; and link on-ground actions to catchment targets and priorities.
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The Natural Resources Commission (NRC) provided advice to Government (Final Report) in June 2007 on whether it would be practical and beneficial for catchment management authorities (CMAs) and private landholders to develop native vegetation management plans at the 'landscape scale' and covering multiple properties.
As a part of this review, the NRC released an issues paper to help stakeholders participate in this review, released a draft report to present draft findings and recommendations, and released a draft guide which explains how CMAs can assess multi-property vegetation plans.
The Government provided a Terms of Reference to seek this advice.
In November 2005, the then Minister for Natural Resources asked the NRC to provide advice on:
- the potential for landscape or multi-farm vegetation plans to produce better economic as well as environmental outcomes than single-farm, or small-scale property vegetation plans, and
- how this potential could inform CMAs when assessing landscape scale vegetation management plans that may be submitted by multiple landholders under the Native Vegetation Act 2003.
- any improvements in the current Environmental Outcomes Assessment Methodology, Property Vegetation Plan Developer and CMA procedures necessary to implement such an approach under the Native Vegetation Act 2005.
In its Final Report, the NRC recommended that the Government:
- explicitly adopt a landscape approach as underpinning its natural resources policies and legislation (including the Native Vegetation Act 2003) and CMAs’ regional delivery of natural resource management in NSW
- encourage CMAs and natural resource management agencies to proactively use existing processes to refine the Property Vegetation Plan Developer, now called the Native Vegetation Assessment Tool (NVAT), over time so it can accommodate more elements of a landscape approach, including the capacity to appropriately assess proposed multi-property plans
- give CMAs greater flexibility (with appropriate accountability) to build on the strengths of the NVAT, but be better able to engage private landholders and regional communities in managing landscapes to deliver agreed environmental, economic and social values expressed in catchment and state-wide targets.
The NRC also recommended specific steps to implement these recommendations.
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How the NRC developed its advice
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- Consultation process
- Submissions received
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Consultation process
As part of this review, the NRC:
- released an issues paper to help stakeholders to participate in the review (this paper received 26 submissions)
- met with stakeholders and held an expert workshop to explore the potential benefits of managing vegetation at the landscape scale
- released a draft report to present and explain its findings and draft recommendations (this report received a further six submissions)
- in conjunction with the draft report, released a draft guide to multi-property vegetation plans which explains how CMAs, using the Standard, can promote and assess vegetation plans where they extend across multiple properties
- conducted a case study to review how CMAs might assess multi-property plans
- met with stakeholders and held workshops to discuss the draft report.
The NRC would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution by all participants, including CMA staff, landholders, agency staff, and independent scientists.
Each of these stakeholders acknowledged the crucial importance of continuing to improve the management of native vegetation and other natural resources in NSW.
Submissions received
Further information: Natural Resources Commission 02 8227 4300 or the NSW Government's website on Native Vegetation Management in NSW.
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